Does anyone keep some kind of a log, journal or maybe even a spreadsheet of their hunting successes?

It might sound a bit "geeky" but I keep an XL spreadsheet listing all of my big game kills. The date, state, county of the kill are noted along with details about the animal such as species, gender, weight, size etc.

The spreadsheet helps me to remember all of the animals that I've been fortunate enough to have taken, not just the biggest and best.

Nope, and the spreadsheet would be pretty big over 60 years if I did!

My experience in the mid-south on it is, high end duck clubs used to do that or still try on a hit/miss basis, and a few of your bigger more heavily managed deer clubs are into that. One has their records and photos on line. And you may have a landowner or two try to keep some records for deer on what his guests do, or he may attempt that but quickly tire of it.

But for 98% of your average joe hunters, such is never done. You don't need to. You carry that info around in your head if at all.

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But for 98% of your average joe hunters, such is never done. You don't need to. You carry that info around in your head if at all.

I see your point but it would be pretty hard to remember all 467 of them off the top of my head!

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You carry that info around in your head if at all.

I have killed a critter or two over the years and I am fairly sure I could walk to within a few feet or yards of where I shot everything from javelinas and up.

I guess keeping records is an okay thing for some folks, sort of like folks having stuff mounted. I just save the skulls/skull caps/teeth/some hides, only have one mounted head, a white tail buck, and the only reason for that is because the land owner of the place I was hunting offered to pay half.

My only hang up with the whole business, and I might not feel this way if I had kids, but I might. At almost 62 and having been hunting since 1967, I have met and known lots of hunters. Many of them have passed on, and those they left behind were not as enamored with guns/hunting the outdoors as they were, and within a few years of their passing all of their gear and trophies are gone to the four winds.

At one time families could get tax breaks or something by donating collections of mounted game to museums and such. I cannot remember just exactly how it worked. It is disturbing to find out that guns a friend/hunting partner for lack of a better term, loved, end up sold for far less monitarily than what they are really worth, but the intrinsics that are just swept aside are what trouble me.

The problem I guess that plays on my mind the most, is that even with kids and even if they hunted with their Dad or GrandDad, rarely do they really ever understand what a particular animal or photo from a hunt or a gun actually meant to the person that has moved on to that next camp over the hill.

I guess as I get older and see more of the folks that helped influence my life wither and fade and move on to the next hunting camp over the ridge, I realize that the things they found important, the things and activities they loved, were quite often only inportant to them.

A person needs to do the things that they want to do in this life. If keeping records or mounting trophies is their thing, go for it. A person needs to be selfish sometimes and do what makes them happy. JAO.

CHC:

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move on to the next hunting camp over the ridge

I love that...

As for the rest of your post, you bring up some great points. I'm sure we've all gone into a store like Cabela's and gawked at all of the beautiful mounts hanging on the wall. I look at them and wonder, not so much about the animal, but about the person who took it. It's sad to think that the hunter might have "moved on to the next camp" and nobody in his/her family or circle of friends cared enough to want to keep the mounts as a memorial.

I keep a game book, in which I record all of my shooting activities. I have done since the age of 14. When I was given my first one by an old family friend. Its a bit like a cross between a diary and a scrap book. As I include such things as shoot cards and photos as well as the jotted notes.

I have never seen the appeal of taxidermy. It just doesn't float my boat. For me guns are mechanicl objects to be admired but not something to get emotionaly attached too.

I was left a pair of Lancaster sidelocks. Beautifull examples of gunmaking craftmanship. But I'm never going to shoot double gun days and they didn't fit me. So they were sold and the money given to my children for their college/university education.

Nope. In fact, I am starting to slack off on my handloading records due to time constraints. This I need to fix.

I'm 61 and have kept a hunting journal since I was 16 er so. I record all info on any hunts/kills every year. It's interesting to go back and read stuff written 20 years ago. Probably 500 big game kills and I dang sure can't remember all of them or where they fell.......

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Probably 500 big game kills and I dang sure can't remember all of them or where they fell.......

You obviously have a life. On the other hand I do not as hunting/the outdoors has been the cornerstone of my existance as far back as I can remember.

I am in the process of finding all the photos that have been taken over the years and have them put on discs.

I never kept a log.I have tons of pics that I keep saying I am going to organize into albums.

While I don't keep written records of game killed, I do of course keep track mentally of what each tree stand produces. And because of that some you keep going back to. That's how one got its name, Old Faithful. And it's how other locations are discarded and stands moved from tree to tree.

Overall, the only detailed written records in the shooting sports I keep are not of game killed, but of performance at the range of different guns. If I buy a new gun it gets a careful evaluation and I keep sample targets and write down everything about it (I make my own targets on the computer). Then you make the decision how good a hunter it'd be, and do you have others that are better. I also try them out from tree stands before actually hunting. That way for instance, I found a certain 8 3/8" barreled scoped handgun too heavy to use without a rest, and so forth and so on. But I guess we all do that sort of thing...

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Originally posted by DTala:
I'm 61 and have kept a hunting journal since I was 16 er so. I record all info on any hunts/kills every year. It's interesting to go back and read stuff written 20 years ago. Probably 500 big game kills and I dang sure can't remember all of them or where they fell.......

I'm with you on this one. Too many to keep a fix on just from memory alone. Funny enough its the odd ones. not necessarily the big ones that I remember easiest.

Like the last cock pheasant of the entire season back in 2000. I was stood behind the line acting as back gun for the lads shooting on this estates beaters day.

A lone cock flushed right at the end of the drive hit the after burner and just climbed for the clouds. Crossed the line and not a gun was raised at him. He set his wings and started to glide for what he thought was the safety of the far spinney down the other side of the valley. He came right over me going like a F16, curling as he headed home. I slapped him with my first shot out of the 16 bore. His head went back and he started to drop, dead in the air. Bugger me, he went and crashed straight into the burn and was swept off down the hill. My old lab took over 10 minutes to find him. She brought him back soaking wet and bedraggled looking like he was some unfortunate road kill. But I couldn't have cared less what he looked like then.As I knew what he looked like as I took the shot and so did the rest of the guys.

Now that one I can take you to the every spot.

crazy, I take hundreds of photos every year and have a three foot high stack of photo albums of hunting trips, people, kills, etc. Almost all are labeled and in somewhat of an order.

I've only kept a journal for our international hunts. Recently I ran across the one from our safari in the Selous in 2007 and began transcribing it into a word file because no one would ever be able to read my chicken scratch. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten about the whole experience and reading through the day to day journal certainly brought it all back fresh in my mind.
Maybe my kids will get a kick out of it when I'm gone.

We keep a journal or log if you will at camp, but it is not all about kills and trophies, but more about happenings at camp. My kids can look back in the log and see who hunted 40 years ago, what the weather was, who dropped his pocket watch in the outhouse, when uncle Bob's first year at camp was, or even grampa's. It's a history book filled with alot of the little things a guy forgets or remebers diffrently over the years. everybodys first years and first deers are in there, the big snow storms, and t-shirt openers and so on. You would not get a talley on deer killed since 1948 however.

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crazy, I take hundreds of photos every year and have a three foot high stack of photo albums of hunting trips, people, kills, etc. Almost all are labeled and in somewhat of an order.

Yes, and possibly all of that would fit on a single DVD, or maybe two.

But even with that, will those photos mean as much or have as much relevance to your Grandkids/Great Grandkids as they do to you???

To each their own, but reality is, unless your family has a certain amount of personal contact with you, stuff that was important to you, may not or will not view you accomplishments in the same manner you do.

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To each their own, but reality is, unless your family has a certain amount of personal contact with you, stuff that was important to you, may not or will not view you accomplishments in the same manner you do.

The same could be anything. Not just hunting and shooting paraphernalia.

My exwifes grandfather was an engineer, machinest, scientific toolmaker, old motorbike and miniture model fanatic. He did 45 years working for the same jet enginer manufacturer. When he died his work shop and home were stuffed with models, bike parts, machine tools. test equipment, books, magazines, photos, raw materials. He had collected, acquired and made over his life time. Absolutely none of it of any interest to any of the family. A few of his buddies come over one weekend and sorted through what was there and took their pick of a few items. The rest was disposed of via a dispersal auction. The house and land were sold to property developers and they redeveloped the whole site.

It happens! It happends all the time!

I don't collect anything, I write my game book cum scrap books thats about it. I do so for my enjoyment first and foremost. My kids have helped at times, they are in them of course. One of my sons has expressed a wish to have them when I'm done. He likes that sort of thing. He's a modern history graduate.

The discussion is about keeping records/trophies/mementos connected with hunting trips.

Can we keep it just on that subject. Some people like doing such things, some people do not, and some folks are like me they keep somethings but realize that the only person such things matter too is themselves.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
The discussion is about keeping records/trophies/mementos connected with hunting trips.

Can we keep it just on that subject. Some people like doing such things, some people do not, and some folks are like me they keep somethings but realize that the only person such things matter too is themselves.

Randy

People collect/record all sorts of things for all sorts of reason. Be it hunting related or not. The motivations behind that collecting/recording regardless of the subject matter would, I suspect be rather similar, if not exactly the same.

Hence my mentioning of the exwifes grandfather and our experience of deatling with his accumulated hoard. Which may not be of interest to you , but it might be to others.

I'm simply putting it out there for peopel to decide of their own accord. If it broadens the discussion what harm has been done? Social exchanges are often like that. Fluid with a thin stream of flow between the various pools!

We're not all of a closed mind.

My apologies BigAsAnElk.

I think keeping records, both written and pictoral of your hunts is a great deal if that is something you want.

I think each of us hope to be remembered in someway after we are gone. Your grandkids/great grandkids if there are any, may never actually know you, will have something to look back on and maybe help them understand why they may be attracted to the Outdoors and Hunting.

Randy

As I said people collect/record of all sorts of reason..To some its a great deal, for some its just a part of life, for some its just a way of assiting their memory.

I doubt if there is a single collection or record exisiting that would explain a persons motivations sufficiently for their great grandchildern to understand them to any great extent. Differnet generations, different experiences and very different times. Make for few if any comminalities of significant interests.

You'd stand a better chance of hoping your ice cream hadn't melted.

my grandson, Dylan, sits and looks thru my photo albums all the time, when we aren't actually hunting/fishing.



troy

Really impressive photo, magnificent buffalo.

Your Grandson while being party of that history, will be better able to foster an interest in hunting and the outdoors in his children and grandchildren, and the pictures will just add to it.

+1 and taken with handmade equipment---very, very impressive!!!

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Originally posted by Bigasanelk:I see your point but it would be pretty hard to remember all 467 of them off the top of my head!

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Originally posted by DTala:
I'm 61 and have kept a hunting journal since I was 16 er so. I record all info on any hunts/kills every year. It's interesting to go back and read stuff written 20 years ago. Probably 500 big game kills and I dang sure can't remember all of them or where they fell.......

467? 500?
What do you two fellers call big game?

If I am not mistaken white tail deer and larger are considered Big Game. In Arizona, Javelina are considered Big Game.

What do you consider "Big Game"?????

My question is for the two I quoted....interested for sure

Well, I can pretty well bet that they are probably going with what the states do and I ain't ever seen white tails listed as Small game. Is that how they are classified in Missouri????? Somehow I doubt it.

I've hunted all of my life, a dozen states, four countries, three continents. 250 whitetails in alabama alone, adds up fast.....

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My question is for the two I quoted....interested for sure

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467

Since you asked:

407 White-tailed Deer
30 Mule Deer
12 Pronghorn Antelope
16 Elk
2 Bison

Coyote, Fox, Waterfowl etc. not counted.

Thats a giant white tail count

351 of them were taken on agricultural damage control permits. There were many instances where I killed 4 or more at a time. The most productive was when I killed 8 deer with 9 shots over a 20 minute period. All of those deer were recovered, field dressed and put to use. (Thank God for the Mexican migrant farm workers.) Dragging, gutting and loading 8 deer on a steamy August night isn't nearly as much fun as it sounds.

I've only killed 56 white tails during the regular hunting seasons. Of those, only a handful were bucks with decent racks.

All in all, not too bad for a self-taught city boy. Maybe I was a market hunter in a previous life.